The invention relates to a container for solid, paste-like or flowable products, particularly for food products, comprising a container bottom part for containing the product and a container top part in the form of a container lid and the container bottom part is provided with a rim extending around the circumference of the opening of the container bottom part.
Such containers consist generally of a plastic material and are manufactured by known injection molding techniques. They are commercially available for various applications and in various sizes and are used in many different shapes for all kinds of products which must be packaged hygienically or, respectively, in a sterile manner. Products which are offered in food stores packaged in such containers are for example all kinds of milk products, meat and sausage products, but also vegetable and fruit products as well as ready-to-serve meals in refrigerated or non-refrigerated states.
Since these types of containers are mass products for are containing the exemplary products mentioned above hygienically and in a sterile and air-tight manner, their manufacture must be inexpensive in order to be acceptable to the market that is, the manufacturers of the products and to the consumers. Furthermore, laws and rules require that such containers provide extensive information concerning the content of the container, the composition of the product, the energy content of the product, the manufacturing date, the expiration date and other information required in certain countries, such as health considerations regarding the product contained in the containers.
For this reason, such containers are generally provided with labels which list the various data concerning the product. Often the labels include also the name of the manufacturer, registered marks etc., and generally in many cases, the product contained in the containers is depicted on the label, for example, a sausage product, a cheese product or a product in the form of a liver pate' or similar.
The additional labels however increase the price of manufacture for the container since the label has to be applied after the filling and closing of the container either to the container itself, to the container lid or to the container and the container lid.
Another important problem of such containers resides in the fact that, for example, upon opening of the container by the removal of the lid, which, for the generally known yogurt and cottage cheese containers, consists only of an aluminum foil, the lid does not lift off at the areas where it is joined to the rim of the containers but is ripped upon removal so that it cannot be used again for closing the container if the product is not fully removed or consumed. Another type of closure for such containers wherein an imprinted foil is cemented onto the actual container lid has the disadvantage that, upon removal of the lid for opening the container that foil is ripped off the container lid without the connection between the container lid and the container being released so that the container cannot be opened in this way.
In another type of such known containers, wherein labels are provided during the manufacture of the lid in accordance in the injection mold already with the foil which forms the outer surface of the container lid, an edge area of the foil projecting beyond the container lid is connected to the container. Also this type of containers have a disadvantage in that, in the edge area of the container lid, the circumferentially reinforced label or foil is ripped uncontrollably during opening of the container. In addition, the ruptured sections of the foils which have been applied by the “Inmolded Label” procedure again causes the foil to be ripped off from this container lid uncontrollably and the container can then be opened only by the use of a tool such as scissors or a knife. Of course, a lid opened in this way cannot be used again to cover the container opening when the product contained in the container is not fully removed or consumed. It is a further disadvantage that often the area around the container or the user become soiled when the user tries to open such a container.
In EP-A 1 475 314, which is assigned to the assignee of the present application, a container of this type is disclosed wherein the disadvantages pointed out above in connection with prior art containers and container lids are eliminated in a very elegant and efficient manner.
The utilization of such containers for various products for mass consumption results in the mass-production of the containers and consequently requires inexpensive solutions for the manufacture of such containers. There is always a trend to reduce the costs of such containers which include a top part consisting of an upper outwardly extending foil and a lid on which the foil is disposed.
It is the object of the present invention to provide a container of the type described above, which can be manufactured faster and more easily than the containers described above and which requires less material and which, after the first use, can again be closed with good sealing properties and reopened as often as needed without any loss in sealing properties.